Liberty cannot be preserved without a general
knowledge among the people."
-- John Adams

Our seminar in political
theory for the spring 2007 semester will focus on
American political thought. We will trace the
evolution and development of American political
ideas from the colonial period, through the
founding, to the civil war and reconstruction,
industrialization, and post-World War II
developments. We will be using primary source
documents -- both in hard print and on the internet
-- for this excursion. As this is a seminar,
students are responsible for a significant amount
of the teaching and learning that will take place.

Here's some fun
links, you'll need some audio software though:Audio
Clips
The "audio clips" site includes fragments of the
Watergate tapesPresidential
Speeches:
This site has audio samples going back to Grover
Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison!

The
Civil War
The site offers pretty thorough coverage of the
civil war.

Dred
Scott Decision
This link will take you to the case. When you get
to it, just scroll down about a half inch or so and
cut to the part where Tawney begins to address the
question as to whether or not the framers
understood blacks to be included in either the "all
men are created equal" clause of the Declaration of
the "We the People" clause of the Constitution. The
paragraph begins "The question is simply this..."
Try to plow through as much of it as you
can.

SDS
- the later years.
Towards the end of its run, SDS was dominated by a
Maoist-influenced faction. The above site takes you
to a Maoist group that still exists and celebrates
the SDS era. Click on the "home" button off the
page I sent you to to get to their version of the
world.

Feminist
Theory
A pretty good bibliographical resource and some
helpful links.